A battalion of Marines, attired in the colorful dress uniforms of the
service, were participating in a short drill on the field just as Panama
left the hospital.
As the men finished up in line, with the great band playing and the
colors flying, an adjutant stepped forward, holding a typewritten list
in his gloved hand.
One by one, he crisply called out the names of each student, waiting in
line, with each proud man coming front and center, halting before the
adjutant and saluting his snappiest.
Panama rested against the stone pillar of the hospital, watching this
familiar procedure, mildly interested until his eyes rested upon Lefty,
lounging on the opposite side of the field and wearing a hang-dog look.
The hard-boiled sergeant shook his head and smiled sympathetically. At
the moment, his heart went right out to the unfortunate boy who just
couldn’t seem to stop from running backward. “Poor kid,” he thought.
“Gee, this must be tough on him!”
As the first man answered to his name, breaking line and coming before
the adjutant, a pompous, heavy-set flying major stepped forward, proudly
dressed in the smart uniform of his rank, conscious of the row of medals
and citations that crossed the left side of his chest.
He mechanically returned the student’s salute, then turned and accepted
a new, shiny silver wing from a kindly, old white-haired man, whose gold
braided epaulets identified him as an admiral in the service of the
United States Navy.
The ostentatious Marine major, with a rehearsed air of distinguished
solemnity plainly visible upon his puffed face, proceeded to pin the
silver wing upon the breast of the student, whose flushed cheeks and
sparkling eyes easily betrayed the boy’s pride.
The student grasped the major’s and the admiral’s extended hands, came
to attention, saluted them both, then executing a snappy about face,
returned to the ranks of anxious, waiting Marines.
After this mechanical performance had been repeated several times,
Panama yawned in a bored fashion, bit off a large chew of tobacco and
wandered down the white steps to the field, crossing to the opposite
side where Lefty, attired in a greasy dungaree khaki jumper, unable to
bring himself to watch the ceremony any longer, was keeping busy by
inflating air into the tire of an airplane landing gear wheel.
A few steps away from where Lefty was bending over a hand pump, Panama
stopped and watched the boy for a moment. His years in the service had
taught him that the worse thing anyone can do for a man who has failed
is to sympathize with him, so assuming a careless, hard-boiled attitude,
the sergeant lifted his foot and let the surprised boy have it.
Lefty regained his bearings and swung around, waiting to confront this
new kind of antagonist only to gaze up into Panama’s laughing and
mischievous eyes.
“Come on, soldier,” Williams chided, “snap out of it! What’s eatin’ you,
anyway?”
The boy turned away, picking up his pump and returning to his task
without venturing to reply.
“This won’t do at all,” Panama thought to himself; then speaking aloud,
“What’s the matter, sorehead, peeved because your buddies got their
wings?”
If any other man in the entire United States Marine Corps, with the Navy
combined, had dared to make such a suggestion to Lefty at that
particular moment, he would have been put to sleep in a swift and
skillful fashion, but Panama, that was something else again. Lefty knew
the sergeant well enough by this time to be aware of the fact that
anything Williams might say should not be taken seriously. Besides,
circumstances had proven that this self-styled, hard-boiled Marine was
the only friend in the entire world that the boy could depend upon.
“No, I’m not peeved because they got their wings and I’m not a sorehead
either,” Lefty announced, curtly. “I wish them all the luck in the
world, only I’d like to be out there standing in line with them.”
“Yeah?” Panama drawled, finding it difficult to continue to suppress the
news any longer from Lefty, “Maybe you will be—soldier—maybe you will
be—some day.”
Lefty looked up at his friend and smiled sickeningly, then allowed his
eyes to wander back to the center of the field just as the pompous major
was pinning the wings upon the breast of Steve Graham.
“Maybe I will—I guess not! I suppose they’ll be sending me back to some
ship any day now.”
Panama bit off another chew of tobacco, still assuming his indifferent
attitude, though he found the part he was playing a difficult one in the
face of the boy’s downheartedness.
“So you think you’ll be shovin’ off to a ship soon?”
Lefty dropped the pump and sighed despairingly; “Shoving off? I’ll be
rushed off!”
“Well, that ain’t so tough,” Panama added. “If you fall off a ship, it
ain’t as far as toppling out of an airplane!”
The boy smiled at his friend’s poor humor, knowing full well that if he
allowed Panama to think for one moment that his chiding was irritating,
there would be no letting up at all.
“That’s true too,” Lefty replied. “But if I fall off a ship, I’ll be all
wet!”
“You’re all wet now, anyway!”
The two men smiled, each possessing a profound respect and admiration
for the other.
“All kidding aside,” Panama continued, now in a supposed serious frame
of mind, “going back to a ship ain’t so bad. I wish I was that lucky.”
Lefty studied the sergeant earnestly to make certain if this latest
announcement was to end in another pun at his expense, but after a
moment, he reached the conclusion that Panama was serious.
“Why, what’s up, skipper?”
“Nothin’, only I’ve been ordered to Nicaragua to-morrow morning. Goin’
down there in that hot box ain’t bad enough, so they had to wish the
worst mechanic at this station on me besides!”
“Who’s the man?” Lefty bit, not the least conscious of the fact that
Panama was referring to him.
“Who?” Panama repeated, assuming an impatient and disappointed air.
“Why, of all the frozen-skulled, lame-brained choice assortment of prize
boobs, they had to wish you on me!”
Lefty looked at Williams with questioning eyes, then seeing that the
other man was in earnest, struggled for words as he ran to grasp the
sergeant’s hands, wringing them furiously and fairly shouting his
gratitude.
“You mean, I’m going to Nicaragua with you? Oh, Gee, Panama—you don’t
know what that means to me! Honest—say, I’m so tickled I just——”
“Aw, apple sauce!” Panama interrupted, “I said you’re going. Ain’t that
enough? What do you want to do—sing a mammy song about it?”
“But I want to thank you for what you’ve done for me!” the boy
persisted.
“Don’t thank me. I ain’t had nothin’ to do with it. If I had my way,
you’d have gone back to a ship!”
A smile of understanding crept across Lefty’s happy face. He knew well
enough that Panama didn’t mean a word of what he had just said.
“Well, why don’t you tell them you don’t want me with you?”
“It’s too late now. I can’t get another man ready in time,” Panama lied
beautifully. “Now stop askin’ silly questions and get that plane ready.
We got to leave in the mornin’!”
“Are we going by plane?” Lefty asked enthusiastically. “You mean, we’re
going to fly all the way?”
Panama shook his head in a hopeless manner, and with an expression of
disgust, muttered, “In the Aviation Corps and fly? Don’t be silly. We’ll
bobsled it all the way!”
Lefty laughed at his friend’s tolerant dry humor and reached down for
the hand pump, turning back to his work on the tire in a happy,
anticipating frame of mind, while the sergeant leaned against the
fuselage of the plane, his mind wandering away to the hospital across
the field and the little nurse inside.
His hand mechanically reached to the breast pocket of his blouse wherein
were hidden the snapshots of Elinor he had just taken from her desk. He
smiled confidently, reached into his pocket, removed the photographs and
gazing down upon the laughing eyes of the lovely girl, his entire manner
softened under the spell cast over him by her likeness.
For the want of someone to confide in, he turned to Lefty and asked,
“Hey, bozo, have you got a girl?”
Phelps dropped his pump and raised himself, casting a hurried glance in
the direction of the hospital and smiling confidently. “Yes—that is, I
think so.”
Panama showed signs of interest and understanding in the romance of his
fellow man. “Is she good-looking?”
“Great!”
Williams had his doubts concerning this. “No woman in the world could
possibly be as pretty as Elinor,” he assured himself, though tactfully
refraining from saying so aloud, adding instead, “Well, if you got a
girl and she knows it, you’d better say good-by to her ’cause I just
said good-by to mine!”
“You don’t mean to tell me you’ve got a sweetheart?” Lefty asked,
tickled silly over this opportunity of gaining a chance to chide Panama.
“Is it possible?”
“Well, I should hope to cough in your mess kit, I have,” Williams
announced with no attempt to shield his indignation. “What do I look
like—somethin’ that would scare away the women and babies?”
“To be honest with you,” Lefty replied, struggling to keep a straight
face, “I should say, yes—also the old folks as well as the women and
babies!”
“I’d like to punch you in the nose,” Panama roared, then holding up the
snapshots, changed his mind and said, “Come here, useless, and lamp
these! Ain’t she a peach!”
Lefty came closer and took the photos in his hands, examining them
closely as he felt his heart heating away furiously. He looked up at
Panama with uncertainty, struggling to hide his apparent concern. “Is
this your girl?”
Panama grinned broadly, throwing out his chest and looking down at Lefty
with self-confidence, believing that he had succeeded in redeeming his
self-respect insofar as being an attraction for the opposite sex was
concerned.
“You see, I ain’t so hard to look at,” he added, boastfully. “There are
some people who say we’ll be gettin’ married some day, if I ever get the
nerve to ask her.”
Lefty forced himself to smile generously as he slapped his friend on the
back in a good-natured fashion.
“Why don’t you ask her—are you afraid!”
“Not exactly, only—well—I don’t know how to put the right kind of words
together. Gee—if I only had your lingo—we’d of probably been married
long ago! You know, somethin’! I didn’t even have the crust to ask her
for these pictures! Yes, sir, I had to wait until she was gone and swipe
’em!”
From the moment that Lefty grasped the fact that Panama was in love with
the same girl whom he idolized, the boy’s heart sunk within him.
He realized that all was fair in love and war—but not in this case when
the other man was his best friend. Besides, he tried to tell himself, he
had no right to even think of Elinor so long as Panama wanted her. He
knew her first, and then again, maybe she really loved the sergeant
and—no, that couldn’t be so, but the one thing vividly certain was the
fact that Panama had befriended him when the rest of the world had
turned their backs. Surely he owed this man something for that alone.
He stood by, silently, fumbling the snapshot carelessly as he allowed
the entire matter to turn over in his mind, reflecting upon what course
to pursue. Panama noticed the way Lefty was handling the snapshot and
pulled it away from him, saying, “Be careful of that—you act as if it
was yours!”
“I’m sorry,” the boy apologized, as Panama carefully put the photograph
away again in his breast pocket.
“That’s Okay. Now get busy on the plane. I gotta pack. See you later!”
Panama walked away toward the barracks, leaving the boy alone, looking
after him just as an orderly approached, bearing a communication from
the Post Commandant.
Lefty tore open the envelope and his eyes fell upon a sheet of official
paper upon which was typed flying orders for the Tenth Squadron.
Hurriedly he read through the difficult routine wording until he reached
the last paragraph where he rested his eyes, reading over the closing
lines again and again.
“You are assigned to Sergeant Williams,” it explained, “as his mechanic
as per his request.”
As he carefully folded up the paper and placed it in his pocket, his
eyes became moist and he felt a lump rising in his throat.
He looked off to his right and saw Panama crossing the field in the
direction of the barracks. A broad smile of grateful appreciation
lighted Lefty’s troubled face, realizing now what Panama had done for
him.
Suddenly he became aware of the terrible breach that might arise between
him and this man because of a woman whom they both loved. He remembered
Panama’s explanation about the snapshots and how he had to take them
when Elinor wasn’t there.
“She must mean everything to him,” he thought. “She’s all he’s got while
I—” Then he suddenly thought of something else as his hand mechanically
reached for his leather wallet. Opening it, he brought out a snapshot of
a girl, a lovely girl with a profusion of dark hair and beautiful wide
eyes that laughed up into his.
The picture was Elinor’s and an exact duplicate of the one Panama had
shown him only a few moments before.
He studied the picture and the face of the girl upon it, reading over
several times the inscription across the bottom written in her own
handwriting: “To Lefty, the Best Patient I Ever Had, Elinor.”
He gazed upon these words that had given him so much to hope for when he
first read them only an hour previous, then he looked pensively upon the
features of the writer, considering the happiness of all concerned.
He lifted his head and looked after Panama, his eyes clear now with
determination as he slowly tore the picture into small bits, letting the
pieces fall from his hand, one by one.